The SitePoint Forums have moved.

You can now find them here.
This forum is now closed to new posts, but you can browse existing content.
You can find out more information about the move and how to open a new account (if necessary) here.
If you get stuck you can get support by emailing forums@sitepoint.com

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Due to the angles of the lower paper, you would be limited to a fixed size - the design would not allow any sort of dynamic resizing in width or height. As such, there is little point slicing it at all - I would crop it the the minimum size possible and experiment with different graphics formats to determine which one results in the smallest file size. It can then be applied as a background to your site container, with the body background a narrow slice as you have suggested.

As I said above, I don't see the point of slicing this at all, especially not saved in two different formats. You have also chopped off some of the shadow, which would result in an abrupt outline. With one graphic cropped to around 666px wide and 800px high, a jpg format can be compressed to about 20k total size with good image quality.

If these smaller images are png-24 with alpha transparency, then the total size of the four would most likely be larger than the 20k jpg I posted above. You would also need three or four additional non-semantic html elements to attach the images to, as well as hacks to make it work in IE6. The image is not changing in size or moving in relation to the body background, so why complicate matters? - I like the K.I.S.S. methodology.

If these smaller images are png-24 with alpha transparency, then the total size of the four would most likely be larger than the 20k jpg I posted above. You would also need three or four additional non-semantic html elements to attach the images to, as well as hacks to make it work in IE6. The image is not changing in size or moving in relation to the body background, so why complicate matters? - I like the K.I.S.S. methodology.

I think you're right but never tested the size difference. The purpose of dividing the image is to actually optimize for users will slow internet connection. Loading the whole image is slower than loading the divided images.

And yet loading each image incurs a separate "handshake" between the browser and the server. Sometimes it's actually faster to load a single image instead of multiple ones. (It's also one of the reasons why CSS sprites are so popular.)